Terms of Use
by Hikaru Tsukiyono
Summary: Pre-game. Power is a dangerous thing, though no more dangerous than its wielder. Sometimes, though, there are the times when it flickers and fades. What if it goes out? HectorxLedah, dubious consent. Implied LxE? Possible ch. 6 or 7 spoilers.


Greetings, this is Hikaru. Standard disclaimer applies--no, I don't own Riviera or any Riviera affiliated characters. If you think I've capitalized one word funny (i.e. "magus" for example) I did that because the red line underneath it was bothering me and fanfiction dot net's spell-check thinks it ought to be capitalized. I'm not sure how much I should trust it, considering that it considers some commonly used contractions spelling errors, but that aside, here are the warnings: male x male content, abuse of power, dubious consent, and perhaps a hint of bondage. Timeline sort of goes out the window, but this is before the start of the game anyhow so I guess I have a tiny bit of liberty.

If any of that really bothers you, I'm not going to force you to read it. The back button is a wonderful invention, don't you agree? For the rest of you who choose to brave this... I can't say "enjoy," but tell me what you think later. Maybe. If you're in the mood, anyway. Happy reading.

* * *

**Terms of Use**

* * *

The summons came as he was going through his forms, Lorelei blazing bright as flame in his hands. "Grim Angel, Lord Hector wishes to see you." 

The angel settled into a neutral stance and looked up, meeting the messenger's eyes squarely. "What does my lord require?"

"As always, leave your weapon. Come with me, I will take you to the chamber where he awaits."

-

Ledah studied the messenger as they walked. This one was clearly accustomed to him; some of the messengers had a tendency to flinch when he looked at them. He didn't quite know why, but felt no pressing need to find out. Most who answered this unspoken question cited his eyes anyway.

"Why does Lord Hector call for you so often, Grim Angel Ledah?" the messenger mused out loud, then clapped a hand over his mouth, horrified. "I beg your pardon! It was not my place to ask, I was simply so curious my mouth ran away with me." He watched the angel warily as Ledah simply walked right by him without batting an eye.

The reply was barely audible, and the delivery monotone. "My lord believes I am the gods' most-beloved and often requests that I attend to their service personally."

The messenger had to quicken his pace to avoid being left behind.

* * *

"Lord Hector," the messenger called, "I have brought the Grim Angel Ledah. Would it please your lordship to allow us entry?" 

There was a pause. Ledah's stone-impassive features had become even more neutral, if it was possible, and nothing about him indicated any sort of nerves. His hands were loose at his sides, wings furled, not a hair on his head out of place. Silently the messenger envied the angel's composure. What he wouldn't give to be able to stand in front of Hector's door and not be nervous! The other magi were not quite so bad, but Hector… had ways of making his displeasure drive home. It was best to step carefully around him, and if possible avoid him altogether.

"Ledah may enter alone. You, on the other hand, will remain on standby until I summon you again. Dismissed."

The messenger shot the angel one last look, to say, "Good luck!" and "Hang in there," but Ledah simply allowed the doors to open before him and stepped in, stride neither quick nor faltering. Fearing the repercussions should he remain too close to the chamber's door—being supposed an eavesdropper usually earned servants in Hector's employ a quick and usually graceless dismissal—the messenger decided to forgo any sort of friendly good-bye to the angel in favor of fleeing the scene.

--

"My lord Hector."

The Magus smiled as he put aside the large tome of old spells he had been studying and stood. "Good. You have come, Ledah."

Something about Hector's smile made something in Ledah's spine prickle unpleasantly and the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He ignored it and calmly waited for the orders that he knew were forthcoming. "You summoned me, my lord."

"Very good. However, the first order of business—" Hector held out a hand and arcane energies swirled around the room before converging on Ledah "—is re-establishing obedience. You will obey my every command, is that clear Grim Angel?"

"Yes, my lord," the angel answered, monotone hitching only once at the sharp sensation of the magic congealing into a collar around his neck—first searing heat, then burning cold, and then finally the cool, smooth sensation of metal.

The Magus laughed at the response, sending further prickles of warning running down the angel's spine. "Good. For my will is the will of the gods." He turned an eye to the dark red of Ledah's robes. "Now take those off. The gods would not be pleased to see their most-beloved keep himself covered up in front of the one whom he is allowed to disrobe for."

-

Face blank, the Grim Angel undid his white cravat. For a moment he paused, and then slid it off to discard it. The rest of his clothes followed in an orderly manner, mechanical in precision and speed. Shucking off his boots at the very last, he stood by a neat pile of clothes with all his pale skin exposed. The scar from his Grim Angel trials stood out against his body, livid reminder of the one time Hector had permanently marred the angel's flesh.

"Come here, Grim Angel. Give me your body." Wetting his lips with his tongue, the Magus held out a beckoning hand. His eyes roved over the angel's body and greedily drank in the sight.

Dimly, Ledah remembered that there was a time he would have felt—shame? Fear? Apprehension, perhaps, regardless he would have felt _something_ at this kind of arrangement. But his feet took him forward toward Hector, and he felt nothing. He knew the names but did not remember the feelings attached to them—too long had it been since he'd last experienced them. The eyes raking over his body, the ones that had been undressing him in the Magus's mind since he'd stepped through the door, did nothing to him—they looked at him, perhaps they lusted for him, but they did not harm him and Ledah could not summon any other sort of feeling in response other than the cold, dead sort of impassive acceptance. He knelt before the Magus, took his hand, and kissed its back. The collar pulsed once or twice in approval, at once parodying its wearer's heartbeat and mimicking its master's pleasure.

Hector smiled again, the same smile he'd worn when Ledah had walked into the room, and reclaimed the hand the angel had kissed. "Now," he murmured, tilting the angel's chin up, "undress me, gods' most-beloved."

-

The Grim Angel had only managed to remove the upper layers of the Magus's garb before Hector's patience wore thin. "That's enough, Grim Angel," he commanded, the fastenings to his under robe undone. Neither could remember why or how, but Ledah had remembered from some past now-forgotten session that before the Magus's under robe was to be removed his loincloth was to be properly taken care of.

It didn't matter so much now. What stared the angel in the face as he knelt again in front of the Magus was Hector's arousal—but then even that fact was pushed to the side at the tone of Hector's next command. Adrenaline—almost as if he were in a battle—rushed through the Grim Angel's body. With blood roaring through his ears, he almost missed the words.

"Now, most-beloved of the gods, worship me."

-

Everything began to blur together afterward. The hands twined in his hair, the hardness pushing into his mouth and past his gag reflex (he'd long since learned how not to choke), the breathy groans of appreciation. If his teeth scraped, the collar tightened; if he did as he was told and his lord was pleased, the collar would loosen a little and pulse its approval. The hands gripping his hips, the teeth at his nipples, the bruising marks Hector's mouth left on his body, the sharp pain below coupled with the bite in the muscular junction between his neck and shoulder.

His body had ideas of its own. His wings flared, shivered, furled; his own member rose on its own and flagged only slightly at the pain.

And at last, when it was over, the Magus lay the angel down on his side, on the floor, and simply looked at him with that very same smile on his face. "I am pleased with you, Grim Angel. You have made progress." He roamed his eyes over Ledah again, over Ledah's impassive, cold expression and the little beads of sweat welling up on his body, the blood between his thighs and the trial scar and the dark discolorations he'd left on the angel's body, and he smiled. Then he laughed, and spoke words that Ledah remembered only vaguely later—"When I become the one god, I shall make you my most-beloved. So grow stronger, and fail me not. If you disobey, if you displease me, I shall choose another."

The angel did not speak a word.

"You may go now, Ledah." The collar dissolved into little motes of darkness, quickly dissipating into the air.

Still silent, the Grim Angel picked himself up, dressed—carefully, body feeling raw and dully painful—and left, walking painfully enough that he resorted to flight.

* * *

The messenger who had delivered his summons was not there; instead Rose trotted up to him and tried not to wrinkle her nose. "You smell like him," she commented. 

Ledah made no reply.

"Does Ein know this is going on?" she asked him. "Have you told him what Hector does to you?"

"I have not told him." The blond angel made to head back to his room and finish his interrupted routine.

Her next words stopped him in his tracks. "What would he say if he heard that you allow this to continue?" Rose asked, trying one more time.

"I will not tell him."

"Are you afraid, then?" Ein's familiar challenged. "Are you afraid of him rejecting you? He'd never do that, you know."

"Fear is a burden for a soldier."

Rose stopped, for a moment. "You can't be a soldier all the time, Ledah. Ein isn't your enemy. I think your enemy in this case is really H—"

"Rethink your words before I consider them treasonous."

"—look, Ledah, fear is built into us much more than you would think. It's that prickle in your spine when you feel like you're being watched, or the alarm bells that ring in your head when someone gives you a particular, wrong kind of look. It's a warning of danger. If anything, that's something a soldier needs."

"Send Ein my greetings." The blond angel disappeared down a corridor, leaving Rose vexed and concerned for Ein and Ledah both.

-

When Ledah returned to his room, he found Lorelei only glowing at a fraction of its usual brilliance. He picked it up and went through a couple forms with it, ignoring how much he hurt—he would have to train with Lorelei for a few days to get it to return to its old glow, and each time it was harder.

Lorelei was warm to the touch, but each time its glow dimmed it cooled somewhat—like the slow death of a star, almost, that Ledah had read about long before becoming a Grim Angel. The stars he could see in the sky above Asgard at night were not immortal, and perhaps Diviners were not forever either. But stars shone for such a long time that it seemed inconceivable…

He only wondered how long it would take before Lorelei went out and never glowed warm under his fingers again. How long would it take before he lost his use as a Grim Angel, serving the will of the gods?

-end-

* * *

A/N: That's that. For the sake of the almost-plot working, let's pretend that the Magic Guild somewhere discovered that stars go supernova after however many millions of years through some sort of scry magic. Erm... yes. So of course Ledah could have read about it in his youth. 

... Please, somebody just tell me if it sucks and what I can do to change it. I don't have a Riviera beta right now. I also contemplated making this a two-part piece, but that means I would inevitably throw in some kind of really obvious Ein x Ledah reference in the second part. Granted, I think I sort of did that already, but it's not too glaringly obvious. It was completely subconscious, though. I might play with this universe a little more, unless the general consensus is that it really, really sucks and needs to be deleted before somebody dies of a brain hemorrhage.


End file.
